Amazon.com: Permanent Vacation[Remastered]: CDs & Vinyl

Aerosmith's '80s-metal album ranks as one of their most macho sounding albums (along with DONE WITH MIRRORS and DRAW THE LINE), particularly Steven Tyler's screamin' metal singer vocals, constantly doing "yak-yak-yak-yeow!!!" screams of many tracks.

This album is a casserole of two distinct music genres (plus a power ballad). Black Sabbath has a great deal of influence in the out of this world metal guitar sound that forms a skeleton on which the other genre, 60s style rock done FAST with Extra Energy and Thundering Drums, and some of Joe Perry's most career blazing guitar solos.

First the Black Sabbath metal-influence: These are the four tracks that are distinctly dark and sinister in metal guitar vibe, yet never angry sounding, just energetic, cool and full of life... music from a starry full moon Halloween night. Tyler's vocals are macho and nonchalant. The atmosphere and production is distinctly '80s sounding. Those tracks are the opener: Hearts Done Time, plus Magic Touch, Simoriah and the ending instrumental, The Movie, which happens to have been a leftover from the prior album writing efforts, and even performed live in concert before P.V. was released. They just fleshed it out and decided to not add lyrics, and they made it even MORE Black Sabbath sounding (It's my favorite instrumental by Aerosmith by far) These tracks form the backbone and personality of the album, giving it a distinctly Black Sabbath metal sound, done '80s style, and with Steven screamin' his lungs out metal music fashion.

The other musical genre, scattered about through the album, is a 60s rock sound. Except that its full of caffeine and aggressive machismo. The drums thunder, as if perched high upon an altar of Hard Rock. Joe Perry's guitar solos are faster and more prevalent than any other Aerosmith album bar none. This rock is full of a blues bass, with plenty of harmonica on several tracks. The blues influence is most heavy on the (almost) pure blues tune "Hangman Jury" and "St. John" which would be "pure blues" except that it's HIGHLY electrified and HIGHLY energetic. (St John happens to be Steven Tyler's last solo authored song. He hasn't written anything by himself since 1987!) It's a fantastic tune and radio single caliber, as are every track on P.V. The Title Track is less blues based, a bit more of the Jimmie Buffet approach, except that it's (yes again) HIGHLY electrified and HIGHLY energetic. This tune was written by Steve Tyler & Brad Whitford, the lesser celebrated guitarist, who has a history with Aerosmith of writing some of Aerosmith's more aggressive sounding cuts, for example "round and round" "nobody's fault" "vodoo medicine man" and "shela" [not a ballad by far]!' from other albums. It's a fantastic cut, but my only complaint is the producer introduced sound effect [airplane-taking-off-noise]. This album is so great, it needs zero sound affects. Another of the 60s style rockers done 80s hard rock high energy style is "Girl Keeps Coming Apart" which was written by Steven Tyler & Joe Perry (Aerosmith's much celebrated guitarist). This is a pure relentless speed demon of a hard rock song, but I certainly hear a 60s beat to it, even if it has a plethora of thundering drums from above, from the altar of hard rock, and perhaps the best guitar solos of the entire album. And, another of the 60s style tunes on the album was a big hit, this one with more of a jazz-blues influence, but a distinctly 60s vibe to it as well, "Rag Doll" which you've bound to have heard before. And still another that owes it's heritage to the 60s vibe was a hit as well, if not a bigger hit than the prior, this one called "Dude (Looks.." With all this 60s influence, they actually did a cover of a Beatles track, "I'm Down", which is done super heavy, with extra . . . (you know!)

The only odd ball track on their album turned out to be it's biggest hit, the power ballad "Angel" Still, I can hear that cool, dark, starry full moon Black Sabbath influence on this one as well.

This album, Permanent Vacation, happens to be my favorite album of all time. It got me into the world of Hard Rock, and music in general, BIG TIME. I recommend you get this for your music collection as it marks the full turnaround of Aerosmith from their decade in the ruts. And, it has Steven Tyler's last solo authoried track (mentioned above) and Steven Tyler's last macho metal style vocalizations, before he turned into a soul music singer.